Small Business Networking

[#1]

Our small business is looking at switching from our T1 service to FiOS for business. Since it's next door to impossible to get a human being from Verizon to call back, I was wondering if I can use my same Cisco router to route internet traffic? In other words, rather than the T1 connection, we connect the Cisco router to the FiOS modem or whatever it is and would we be good to go?

[#2]

I do not have FIOS, but I can point you to

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/verizonfios/3.0_Networking#16077

[#3]

I recently replaced a T1 with business FIOS, I have to say their support couldn't answer basic internet questions.

The bottom line: You don't need to use your router or Verizon's.

An Ethernet connection is coming out the ONT (Optical Network Terminal), you plug it right into your network (switch, firewall, router). For me I plugged it into a NetScreen Firewall.

If your Cisco Router accepts Ethernet as an input you can use it otherwise you can't.

[#4]

Agreed.

I currently work as an exchange consultant, but I use to be a infrastructure architect at a SMB. Here are my honest opinions on fios for business:

1) this is not dedicated circuits, they are what is called wideband. A dedicated circuit means you need to get a minimum of x MB/s up and x MB/s down. Wideband means you CAN GET up to this amount.

2) "openarp technology". This has to be one of the worst ideas I have ever seen. Basically what happens is IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE YOUR OWN HARDWARE (meaning you plug in the cat6 cable from the ONT into your WAN port on your router / firewall) they send the arp requests as 0.0.0.0 (broadcast) from the CO/XCO. **bleep**??? On my sonicwall I had to go into the tech support settings and allow openarp requests (sonicwall and Cisco will have this turned off usually, due to he possibility of arp spoofing and poison arp table attacks). I also had to manually configure the arp table on the sonicwall. the support was useless as we troubleshooted this issue, and sonicewall was the one that told us about it.

3) there tech support is horrible. Since you get an ont, you think they could loop that back. Wrong. They can't do anything, and you can't twlk to a tester. It was **bleep**


If you are looking for a cheap business solution (5 ips with 35/35 wideband for 130 a month) then fios for business is good.

If you need a dedicates bandwidth on a dedicated circuit, t1 is what you need.